The Recipe for Joy

Yesterday, I took Stephanie and Jordan for a hike in the hills near our home (see the photos here), and as we were walking along the bush trails, I was conversing with the Lord and remarking to him what an incredible thing it is to experience his joy in the midst of suffering. Admittedly, my suffering is hardly intense at the moment, yet the joy is still inexplicable in human terms.

How is it possible to have joy in the midst of suffering? Most people associate a feeling of happiness with the circumstances that are conducive for happiness, and yet the Christian experience defies this correlation. We know that 1 Thessalonians 5:16 tells us, "Be joyful always," but how is it possible that we are able to experience this literally "always"? The indication is that this is a command that can be obeyed, but if so, that must mean that joy is more than a variable emotion resulting from the shifting winds of our circumstances. If we are directly commanded to "be joyful always", it must mean there are things that are in our control - in other words, things that we can actively do - that will produce joy in our life!

Even Jesus spoke to us about a joy that defies the circumstances. In Luke 6:22-23, he said:

"Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their fathers treated the prophets."

This ability to "rejoice...and leap for joy" when people "exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil" is a hallmark of the Christian experience - in fact, one of its defining characteristics. In Acts 5:41, the disciples experienced exactly that Jesus had predicted in Luke 6:22-23:

"The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name."

Paul also discovered the same thing in his experience, and so he was able to say, in 2 Corinthians 7:4:

"I have great confidence in you; I take great pride in you. I am greatly encouraged; in all our troubles my joy knows no bounds."

Likewise, he wrote of the experience of the Macedonian Christians in 2 Corinthians 8:2:

"Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity."

Paul himself wrote the book of Philippians (written to a Macedonian city - the same ones who had experienced "overflowing joy" in the midst of a "most severe trial") when he was in prison. Yet the book resounds with an unconquerable joy, which should not surprise us, since the Philippian church had been founded on joy (note Acts 16:22-34). Eugene Peterson, in his "Introduction to Philippians" in The Message, writes this:

This is Paul's happiest letter. And the happiness is infectious. Before we've read a dozen lines, we begin to feel the joy ourselves - the dance of words and the exclamations of delight have a way of getting inside us.

But happiness is not a word we can understand by looking it up in the dictionary. In fact, none of the qualities of the Christian life can be learned out of a book. Something more like apprenticeship is required, being around someone who out of years of devoted discipline shows us, by his or her entire behavior, what it is. Moments of verbal instruction will certainly occur, but mostly an apprentice acquires skill by daily and intimate association with a "master," picking up subtle but absolutely essential things, such as timing and rhythm and "touch."

When we read what Paul wrote to the Christian believers in the city of Philippi, we found ourselves in the company of just such a master. Paul doesn't tell us that we can be happy, or how to be happy. He simply and unmistakeably is happy. None of his circumstances contribute to his joy: He wrote from a jail cell, his work was under attack by competitors, and after twenty years or so of hard traveling in the service of Jesus, he was tired and would have welcomed some relief.

But circumstances are incidental compared to the life of Jesus, the Messiah, that Paul experiences from the inside. For it is a life that not only happened at a certain point in history, but continues to happen, spilling out into the lives of those who receive him, and then continues to spill out all over the place. Christ is, among much else, the revelation that God cannot be contained or hoarded. It is this "spilling out" quality of Christ's life that accounts for the happiness of Christians, for joy is life in excess, the overflow of what cannot be contained within any one person.

What better definition of joy can you possibly find? In Eugene Peterson's words, joy is defined as "life in excess, the overflow of what cannot be contained within any one person."

So in order to understand the nature of God-given joy, we need to understand this "life in excess." So starting last night, I began to investigate joy in the Scripture, and since I couldn't sleep much of last night (my medication can sometimes have that side effect), I devoted most of the early hours of this morning to furthering this investigation.

Let's start with a familiar passage. Nehemiah 8:10 says:

"...Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength."

I've noticed this very practically in my own life. When facing hardship, there is nothing better than an injection of joy to act as an antidote to the frailty of life. But notice this joy isn't something that I try to conjure up myself. It is the joy of the Lord that is my strength - God's joy, not just my own!

People don't commonly think of God being a God of joy. The picture painted so often is of an austere, solemn God who couldn't crack a smile because it's not in his nature. Yet the Bible reveals a very different God. Psalm 45:6-7 says:

"Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever; a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom. You love righteousness and hate wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy."

This is a messianic psalm, speaking of the coming of Jesus (note Hebrews 1:9), and it speaks of the messianic anointing upon the Lord Jesus as an anointing with "the oil of joy," flowing from the Father to the Son.

In Galatians 5:22, which find the defining characteristics of the Christian life:

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness..."

One of the "fruit of the Spirit" is joy, and thus most Christians know that joy is supposed to be a product of the Christian life. What many don't realise, however, is that joy is a fruit of the Spirit. In other words, like the other eight fruit of the Spirit, joy is an attribute of the Holy Spirit himself. Joy is an integral part of God's nature, the same nature we are called to "participate" in (2 Peter 1:4).

Time and again, Scripture bears witness to this attribute of joy being an intrinsic element of the Holy Spirit's nature, overflowing into the Christian life. For example, Acts 13:52 records:

"And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit."

Again, in Romans 14:17, Paul writes:

"For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit."

Likewise, in 1 Thessalonians 1:6, he says:

"You became imitators of us and of the Lord; in spite of severe suffering, you welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit."

Luke 10:21 also records this about the Lord Jesus himself:

"At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, 'I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.'"

I believe that the reason the Bible continually instructs us to "shout for joy to the Lord" (Psalm 100:2)and "come before him with joyful songs" (Psalm 100:3) is that the Lord responds to joy in the same way that we do (which shouldn't surprise us, since he created us in his image - Genesis 1:26-27). How do we, as humans, respond to joy expressed sincerely by another? The response is, generally, a reciprocation in joy! God experiences joy when we express genuine heart-felt joy. And I believe the reverse is also true: we experience joy because God is himself a God of joy.

So I'd like to share with you the four ingredients of joy that I discovered in the last few hours of study.

Ingredient #1 - Joy is the product of hope

Hope is definitely a key element of joy. Proverbs 10:28 tells us:

"The prospect of the righteous is joy, but the hopes of the wicked come to nothing."

Romans 12:12 also correlates joy with hope:

"Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer."

In Philippians 1:4-6, Paul described this experience of being "joyful in hope" in his prayer for the Philippian Christians:

"In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."

Hope is actually the vehicle by which joy can be present in the midst of suffering, for hope sees beyond the present to God's future intervention and deliverance. Jesus explained this ability to be "joyful in hope" by paralleling his disciples' experience with the experience of a woman undergoing childbirth. In John 16:21, he said:

"A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world."

Jesus himself viewed his suffering as a type of pain which produced something of great value, because Hebrews 12:2 tells us that Jesus "for the joy set before him endured the cross." For this reason, Peter spoke of "the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow" (1 Peter 1:11).

The most difficult kind of suffering to endure is suffering that one believes doesn't produce anything. If a person can see beyond the suffering to what that suffering will produce, he or she can endure any suffering. I therefore used to think that suffering associated with cancer or other illness was "meaningless" suffering, and therefore the most difficult to endure - but I now realise that I was wrong. What I am going through right now, and what I may have to go through in the future, is not meaningless for me. It is producing something of great and eternal value for me. As Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 4:17-18:

"For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."

The key to joy in the midst of suffering is focus: fixing your eyes "not on what is seen, but on what is unseen." This is not always easy to do, but the empowering of the Holy Spirit is there to minister hope to us in apparently hopeless circumstances, to lift our eyes from the seen to the unseen (see also 2 Corinthians 5:7). And in my experience, this is also why God has placed us in a local church, for when I've lost focus, it is my brothers and sisters in the Lord (both my natural family and my spiritual family) who have been there for me, to encourage me to turn my focus back on the Lord.

In Hebrews 10:34, the writer describes the kind of joy that is based on "what is unseen":

"You sympathised with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions."

This is why Paul was also able to say in Romans 5:3:

"Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance..."

Echoing Paul's words, James 1:2-4 says:

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds..."

Why can we consider "trials of many kinds" as "pure joy"?

"...because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

But hope is not the only factor that produces joy. Although hope is vital, there are also other ingredients in the mix.

Ingredient #2 - Joy is the product of love

In 1 Peter 1:8, Peter describes a fundamental characteristic of joy:

"Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy."

Love carries a joy with it. Anyone who has "fallen in love" knows this, and we've seen it on the faces of others. Well, it's no different with our relationship to God. A genuine love for God will drive a deep-felt joy.

Psalm 5:11 says:

"But let all who take refuge in you be glad; let them ever sing for joy. Spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may rejoice in you."

I also believe it is no coincidence that the first two fruit of the Spirit are love and joy (Galatians 5:22), for one flows from the other. And as we'll see in a moment in John 15:10-12, true love for God always outworks in joy.

Ingredient #3 - Joy is the product of faith

If you look back at 1 Peter 1:8, Peter actually mentions not one, but two of the fundamental characteristics of joy:

"Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy."

In Acts 16:34, we witness faith producing joy:

"The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God — he and his whole family."

Faith in God, coupled with hope and love, drive a God-given joy. This is why Romans 15:13 says:

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."

You might think that all there is to the recipe of joy - that the three attributes mentioned by Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:13 are the three sole ingredients that together produce joy. But I discovered there is one more vital ingredient - the "binding ingredient" that, together with faith, hope and love, produce an unconquerable joy.

Ingredient #4 - Joy is the product of obedience

In Romans 16:19, Paul wrote:

"Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I am full of joy over you..."

Paul's response to the obedience of the Roman Christians is the same as the Lord's response - joy! In fact, on other occasions Paul also described how the obedience of his converts produced in him a great joy. In Philippians 2:2, he wrote:

"...then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose."

Likewise, in 2 John 1:4, John wrote:

"It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as the Father commanded us."

With almost the same words (and reference number), he again wrote in 3 John 1:4:

"I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth."

If Paul and John could feel this joy when they heard of the obedience of their spiritual children, how much more our heavenly Father?

In John 15:11, Jesus said:

"I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete."

Jesus had been telling his disciples something in order that their joy might be "complete" (the same expression that Paul and John used in Philippians 2:2 and 1 John 1:4). What was it that he had been telling them? What was it that was so important that if his disciples understood his teaching, the result would be the completion of joy in their lives? In order to see what it was that Jesus was telling his disciples, we need to look at John 15:11 in its context. John 15:10-12 says:

"If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you."

Obedience is an indispensable ingredient in the mix - the "binding ingredient" that catalyses faith, hope and love into joy. For if you have hope alone, without the heart-felt obedience that comes from faith and love, the result may be endurance, but it will not be joy. Obedience from the heart results in heart-felt joy.

I'll share with you a quick example from my own experience. When I was 13, one of my chores was to mow the lawn. The best time to mow the lawns was on a Saturday morning, but the problem was this conflicted with a basic teenage desire I had to sleep in on Saturday mornings! Saturday after Saturday, my dad would stir me from bed and tell me to go out and mow the lawn. Very begrudgingly, I would get up and mow the lawn, but the result was not joy. In fact, it was pure misery for me (and I'm sure not pleasant for my dad as well).

So what then do I mean when I say that obedience results in joy? If you look back, you'll notice that I qualified this by saying, "Obedience from the heart results in heart-felt joy." Legalistic obedience never produces joy. Far from it, legalism actually corrodes joy (Galatians 4:15).

But in my experience, I did discover the true nature of both obedience and joy. There was one Saturday where I decided that I would do things differently. I decided that, because I loved my dad, for his sake I would get up earlier (without him needing to tell me) and do the lawn. I remember starting up the lawn mower and beginning the lengthy process of mowing the lawn (the house we were renting actually had three levels of lawn!), and feeling the upwelling of great joy. I completed the mowing in record time, and I remember the look of joy on my father's face when he saw the lawn mowed and trimmed.

This is what Jesus meant when he said, "If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love," and that this obedience would result in great joy. And if you look back at John 15:11, you will also discover something else about joy. The joy we experience is double-barreled. It is "joy squared"! For Jesus said that true obedience results in joy on two levels:

1. My joy will be in you
2. Your joy will be complete

This was my experience as a teenager. When I obeyed whole-heartedly, not out of a sense of obligation, but because of love for my father, I experienced joy on both levels:

1. I experienced a joy of my own - the simple joy of bringing joy to my father
2. I experienced my dad's joy, for his joy also overflowed into my heart

Thus I can say that on that Saturday, when I changed my attitude, my father's joy was in me, and thus my joy was complete!

When a person first commits their life to Christ, they usually experience great joy (Acts 16:34). But many times I've had Christians come to me later and ask, "Where did the joy go?" What they didn't realise is that you can't live off old obedience. Joy isn't the result of a one-time, initial obedience; it is the result of an on-going, daily obedience. If your joy has gone stale, I recommend going back to the Lord and asking, first, "What was the last thing you told me to do?" (and if you're not doing it, then do it), and then, "What, Lord, are you wanting me to obey now?" It is only when we step out in the obedience of faith that we will discover "the full measure of joy" that Jesus talked about in John 17:13:

"I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them."

You will remember that Eugene Peterson's definition of joy is "life in excess, the overflow of what cannot be contained within any one person." This "life in excess" is the "abundant life" Jesus said he had come to bring (John 10:10). In short, the life that comes from God produces the joy that comes from God!

Well, this post has ended up a lot longer than I had originally anticipated, but I trust it has helped you discover what I was discovering earlier this morning. I've actually got much, much more I'd like to share with you on this topic, but I'll leave it for another time.

So in closing I'll just share two last verses with you. Psalm 65:8 has always meant a lot to me, and has particularly been my experience over the last few weeks, ever since I first received news that I had cancer:

"Those living far away fear your wonders; where morning dawns and evening fades you call forth songs of joy."

And lastly, Jude 1:24 gives me a glimpse of what God has in store for me at the end of the journey - a journey that is an upward journey of joy all the way. It is also a wonderful closing doxology to this post:

"To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy..."